Tattle: Trump's latest rant victim: Seinfeld

DONALD TRUMP, who seems to be mad at everybody these days, has added Jerry Seinfeld to his enemies list.

Trump is angry because Seinfeld canceled an upcoming appearance at a benefit for son Eric Trump's foundation, the New York Post reported yesterday.

But is The Donald mad at The Jerry because he pulled out or because of why he pulled out?

The benefit isn't until Sept. 13, so it's not as if Jerry left them in the lurch without a headliner - Trump has already gotten former "Celebrity Apprentice" contestant Bret Michaels to pinch hit. He did something worse.

He bruised Trump's ego.

Jerry said he was canceling on the fundraiser for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital because he's upset that Trump keeps ranting about Barack Obama's birth certificate.

When he's not ranting about taking Iraq's oil. Sorry, "our" oil.

Or when he's not ranting about how he's more qualified than Mitt Romney to be president because he's wealthier.

"Jerry has grown increasingly uncomfortable" with Trump's questioning of Obama's citizenship, said a Seinfeld rep.

So, Seinfeld has withdrawn. But he still made a contribution both to the Eric Trump Foundation and to St. Jude.

Trump, of course, took Jerry's departure like a mature adult.

"I just learned you canceled a show for my son's charity," he said in a letter to Seinfeld, "because of the fact that I am being very aggressive with respect to President Obama, who is doing an absolutely terrible job as our leader.

"We don't care that you broke your commitment," Trump wrote. "What I do feel badly about is that I agreed to do, and did, your failed show, 'The Marriage Ref,' even though I thought it was absolutely terrible. . . . Despite its poor ratings, I didn't cancel on you like you canceled on my son and St. Jude. I only wish I did.

"You should be ashamed of yourself!"

Ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the United States.

Film shows pope can't cope

 Yesterday we wrote about the 3-D erotic film that's a surprise hit in Hong Kong. Today we have a surprise hit in Italy.

"Habemus Papam" - Latin for "We Have a Pope," the expression with which the election of a pontiff is announced to the world - opened last Friday to a strong showing at the Italian box office. The movie will be shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

Director Nanni Moretti's film is about a panic-stricken pope who can't cope with the enormity of his task.

The view from the Vatican? At least it's not "The Da Vinci Code."

Avvenire, the influential newspaper of the Italian Catholic bishops' conference, printed a letter by a Vatican expert last week making the obligatory boycott call, asking readers, "Why should we finance those who offend our religion?"

(Actually, the film has already been financed.)

But no such call has come from Vatican officials. And Avvenire's own review said that the film is well-made and clever, though it faults Moretti for representing "the death of an old and confused church" and missing the crucial point of the church's faith and communion with Christ.

Details, details.

Some Catholic commentators even praised Moretti for offering a humane portrayal of a troubled pope, played by the 85-year-old French actor Michel Piccoli.

"There's no sarcasm, no caricature," wrote Vatican Radio.

Moretti maintains that it was not his goal to make a movie on the Vatican.

"It is a movie on the difficulties of meeting other people's expectations," the director said. "It's the story of a man who comes to terms with his limits."

There's an idea for the church: term limits.

Tattbits

 * Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards' daughter Theodora Richards will get her New York City graffiti and marijuana case dismissed in exchange for doing two days of community service, a judge said yesterday.

Theodora, a 25-year-old model, smiled but stayed silent as she left a Manhattan court. She has until late June to do the service and won't have to enter a plea.

* The Hollywood Reporter says Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley will reprise their roles as the champagne-guzzling Patsy and Edina in three new episodes of "Absolutely Fabulous," due to be filmed later this summer for BBC1.

* Lindsay Lohan is back in "Gotti: Three Generations," but will now play Kim, the wife of John Gotti Jr.

Last week, producers said that Lindsay was in talks to play Victoria Gotti, the daughter of John Gotti. Then she was out.

Now she isn't.

John Travolta will play John Gotti, and Joe Pesci has been cast as pal Angelo Ruggiero.

The project is set to begin production in October.

* Christopher Tierney, the actor who badly hurt his back when he tumbled from the stage at the Broadway musical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," has been cleared to return and hopes to be swinging over the audience again on opening night in June, July or whenever.

"His back's fine," producer Michael Cohl said. "They've taken the bolts and the nuts and everything out."

In fact, Tierney is in a lot better shape than the show, which is on hiatus while it undergoes an overhaul.

* Environmentalist/filmmaker Robert Redford is speaking out against the Pebble Mine, a huge copper-and-gold deposit poised for development in southwest Alaska, which also hosts the world's last and best wild-salmon streams.

Redford says that Pebble is a disaster in the making.

The mining companies say that they can develop the mine responsibly without harming fish.

And if salmon could guffaw, they would.

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

Email gensleh@phillynews.com.